Mega Man X2
Notable RTAs any%: * 32:51 by calebhart42 (SNES, J) *33:02 by Trogdor (SNES, J) *33:22 by nero (SNES, J) *32:34 by hetfield90 (SNES9X v1.51, J) low% *36:12 by Darko (VC, J) *36:26 by gameO (VC, J) Emulator has a slight advantage over console due to CX4 lag emulation; these runs are not necessarily 'faster' than the console time. X2 has a significant amount of lag, which emulators (particularly uosnes, used by many Japanese players) may not properly replicate. XC has no gameplay lag as well. VC appears to be fairly accurate, but little testing has been done. 'Boss Damage Table' Notes: *For X-Buster, the four damage values are listed according to how long the weapon is charged. The first number is damage done with uncharged shots; the second number is when the weapon is charged slightly (cyan); third number is when the X-Buster is charged some more (yellow). Fourth number is damage done with the second shot when the X-Buster is charged all the way (pink). *For the eight Special Weapons, the first number is damage done when the weapon is used in normal fire; the second is when the weapon is used in its charged state. *For Silk Shot, the four sets of damage values listed for the X-Hunters lists the types of shots that are fired at them. The types of shots are listed as follows: rock, leaves, crystals, scrap metal. **For most of the the eight Maverick bosses, the first set of numbers is damage dealt to them in their own stage; second set is damage dealt in the X-Hunters' fortress. *For Wheel Gator, hitting him with an uncharged Strike Chain will inflict 3 units of damage under most circumstances. If hit while he's flashing, however, it will inflict 5 units instead. Hitting him with a charged Strike Chain using this method will still inflict five units of damage. *For Magnet Mine, hitting Crystal Snail with this weapon will not only damage him, but will also cause him to crash into one of the walls of his boss room for an additional two units of damage to the damage values listed. *For Giga Crash, numbers listed is the total amount of damage done. **For Flame Stag, Giga Crash will sometimes inflict three units of damage instead of two. *For Shoryuken, using this will instantly defeat most bosses in one hit. Unlike Hadouken from Mega Man X, however, Shoryuken does not inflict a set amount of damage; the amount of damage done to a boss is dependent on how close X is to the boss when preforming it. *Credit goes to Twilight Man from MMKB for damage values. 'Boss Orders' There are three main categories for Mega Man X2: any% (fastest; obtain Shoryuken), low%, and 100% (Zero Parts + Shoryuken). No stages are revisited 'Any%' In any%, collecting all items and the Shoryuken is the fastest method to complete the game Any% route: #Wire Sponge #Wheel Gator #Flame Stag #Magna Centipede #Crystal Snail #Overdrive Ostrich #Bubble Crab # Morph Moth Alternate (slower) route: #Wire Sponge #Wheel Gator #Overdrive Ostrich (use Buster) #Bubble Crab #Flame Stag #Morph Moth #Magna Centipede #Crystal Snail 'Low%' No items or upgrades. Same order as standard any% order above, but Overdrive Ostrich is last; true weakness order (no airdash required). '100%' Same route as any%; three extra X-Hunter fights, no Zero fight in the final stage. Race note: In an 8 Mavericks race setting (with no "any% route" condition), the fastest option is to play low%, but obtain the X-Buster upgrade. Text: (J) vs (U) Rockman X2 (Japanese version) saves 15.12 seconds in any% due to text; 10.72s in low%, 22.87s in 100%. Comparison by Trackftv. Basic Techniques 'Not Crashing the Bike' The bike in Ostrich's stage is a mysterious machine that nobody truly understands; however, it is still possible to be consistent at not crashing it. The most important things are: *Do not shoot too much. This lags the game which not only loses time, but sometimes makes you crash the bike. The small bridges only need 3 shots. *Do not shoot too early or too late. (Shooting too early lags the game, shooting too late will mess up the height you gain from a ramp.) *Kill the little red enemies (at least the one just before the first small bridge that you have to shoot down). Additionally, just for safety, you may want to do a small jump over the second small bridge that you shoot down, as it sometimes makes you crash into a ledge. Picture guide for not crashing the bike 'Bubble Crab's Subtank' There are two general methods for doing this - you can either do a slope jump (walking down the slope and jumping, causing you to gain extra height) into a wall jump off the left wall, into an airdash, and then jumping onto the ledge, or you can do a neon jump (with or without a slope jump). Using a neon jump is faster, but if you are not very consistent at doing them, consider the other strat. Demonstration of both strats 'Crystal Snail's Heart' Go up the first slope to the left with the ride armor, and start charging your attack. Release the charged attack at the edge, hold left and tap the jump button at a frequency of a few taps per second. Make sure that you only tap the button for a very short time each tap, instead of holding it. If you do it correctly you will be able to land the ride armor on the ledge with the heart, meaning that you can use it to get back, saving some time. 'Shoryuken' The Shoryuken is acquired in any% because it lets you kill bosses very quickly (most can be killed in one hit). You can perform the Shoryuken either by doing the inputs forward -> down -> down+forward -> shoot, or by doing a lower halfcircle from left to right or from right to left and then shooting. The shoot input can be done, at the latest, 19 frames after the final directional input is done.Sometimes you will shoot an uncharged buster shot in addition to doing the Shoryuken; this happens when you do the final directional input on the same frame as you shoot, or if you do the shoot input before the final directional input. The directional inputs can be done while airborne, but the shoot input needs to be done on the ground. Per frame of connection, the Shoryuken deals 16 damage on most bosses when they are not under the effect of invincibility frames (flashing white), and 8 damage on bosses when they are under the effect of invincibility frames. Because of this, it is important on some bosses to avoid shooting an uncharged buster shot when doing the Shoryuken, as the shot will cause the boss to enter invincibility frames. The Shoryuken also deals damage every other frame (taking at least 5 frames to kill most bosses, 7 frames for Flame Stag as he only takes 8 damage from the first hit). 'Input Buffering' After the health bar of a boss fills up, there is a short pause (except for Zero and Sigma's first form). During this pause, if you hold a button, the action of that button will happen as soon as the fight starts. For example, this is useful for jumping as soon as possible on Moth and firing an uncharged chain while charging at the beginning of the Gator fight (if you want to do that). Note that you cannot buffer a dash. 'Advanced Techniques' 'Neon Jump/Liberty Jump' A Neon Jump is essentially a double (or triple) jump, using the Air Dash and Buster Upgrade shot. To perform one: *Jump *Air Dash *During the dash, shoot (charged) and jump on the same frame 'The charged buster has a fully charged shot, and a 'neon' or 'flashing' shot. The Neon Jump can be performed with either (or both) shots. For the first charge shot, release your shot on the same frame you jump. For the second shot (much easier), shoot on the same frame you jump. The main advantage of the Neon Jump is to get Morph Moth's heart without revisiting the stage. They are used a few times in 8 Mavericks, but mostly used in the X-Hunter Stages. You can chain these two jumps together to triple jump (useful for Bubble Crab's heart). '''Elevator Skip In X-Hunter Stage 2, you can skip the vertical elevator (moving platform), saving about 20 seconds. You can do this in any% and low%. Any% method: *Wait slightly for the third elevator platform (above water/spikes) to move while keeping the final elevator offscreen *Jump and quickly airdash under the elevator platform *Jump off of the water after reaching the right of the platform *Jump onto the final elevator Some things to keep in mind: *You cannot jump out of the water while dashing. Let go of the dash button before trying to jump. *Instead of just jumping up the steps to the little platform before the horizontally moving elevator, you should jump up to the left wall and walljump to it. This makes it so that you have a higher speed as you enter the spawn area for the vertically moving elevator, giving you more time to get onto it. Demonstration of Any% method Low% method: Jump over the final horizontally-moving elevator. Demonstration by yoshiiscool 'Crystal Skip' Emulator only. It is possible to skip the second to last large crystal in Crystal Snail's stage by firing full charge shots. This does not save much time. It is fairly difficult to time correctly, and if you miss it you will die. This trick is currently believed to not be possible if you play on the original SNES/SFC version or Wii Virtual Console, but not everything about the trick is known yet. 'Neon Switching' By charging up to purple and releasing the first shot just as you enter a boss door, you can switch weapons and/or start charging again and still have your second shot stored. Useful mostly for a faster Stag technique, and a less luck-based Snail technique (see below). 'Crystal Snail Miniboss Skip' In Crystal Snail's stage, it is possible to skip the miniboss completely. It is not known exactly how this works (some theories include lag and sprite overflow), but it can be done in a number of ways. The easiest way is to get up into the corridor before the miniboss, dashing and releasing a charged Speed Burner at the right time. If you release too early, you will lose your speed before you go over the edge into the miniboss room and fail the trick. If you release too late, you will also fail the trick (likely because you hit the trigger for the miniboss before you start burning). However, the window for releasing is fairly large, so it is easy to get it consistently. Demonstration Other methods: *Firing an uncharged Speed Burner and dashing into the room (used in low%) *Firing several uncharged Sonic Slicers and dashing into the room *Charging up a Silk Shot and dashing into the room *Using a charged Strike Chain to grab onto the protrusion from the ceiling *Getting the ride armor from the beginning of the stage into the corridor, doing a charge attack off the left edge, turning around and tapping the jump button to fly through Boss Strategies 'CF-0' Shooting the dash shots far away from the boss allows you to start charging the next shot earlier, thus saving a bit of time. Also, make sure not to fall down at the end of the fight as that will make you stand lower on the screen, which means that teleporting out will take longer. 'Wire Sponge' Once Sponge goes below 10 health, if he is standing on the ground, he will get angry and start dancing. This makes him invulnerable for roughly 9 seconds. To avoid this, get him down to 10 health and then kill him when he hangs from the ceiling. Note that this is very luck dependent because you cannot manipulate Sponge into doing his ceiling-hanging move (other than going behind him, which makes him stop doing his current move and start doing a new one). Make sure to destroy the spikes he shoots out when he hangs from the ceiling, as he will drop down if there are 4 out at the same time. 'Wheel Gator' Using Strike Chain normally causes Wheel Gator to become invulnerable and go offscreen. However, between his damage invulnerability period and the beginning of his animation there is a 5-frame window in which you can attack him with Strike Chain. You can hit him continuously in this pattern and kill him in one cycle. The first hit when you enter the boss door requires a dash or charged Strike Chain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYOcPJLjhWI%7CVideo on how to perform this trick. Shoryuken: Start the fight with a dash->Strike Chain to stun him. To kill Gator in one shot, your Shoryuken must land within the five frames of his vulnerability; however, you only have five frames during which you can damage Gator and Shoryuken deals damage on the first frame then every other frame after, so this is a 'frame perfect' trick. Because of how difficult this is, it is recommended to hit Gator with several chains before performing the Shoryuken. Most commonly used are 4 or 6 chains; 4 is faster, but 6 makes the Shoryuken a little more lenient. If you want to weapon cancel instead of pausing before the Shoryuken, it's important to know that weapon cancelling is slightly odd in this room - you either need to press the weapon switch buttons on the exact same frame, or at least 5 frames apart. The easiest way to weapon cancel for the Gator Shoryuken is to hold either the Left or Right weapon swap buttons at any point before the fight starts, then after your last chain retracts fully, press the other weapon swap button for an instant weapon cancel. 'Overdrive Ostrich' Ostrich's invincibility frames reset when he reaches the peak of his jump during his charged Sonic Slicer attack, so timing your dash buster shots to hit him just before and then just after will make the boss fight much faster. 'Flame Stag' Using charged buster and Bubble (advanced technique): Perform a Neon Switch (see above) on the first boss door, and switch to bubble. Start the fight by shooting Stag with bubble once, charging up fully, switching to buster and releasing your charge shots. Shoot Stag with bubbles 7 times and start charging again, making it so that you are fully charged when Stag has 5 health left. Switch back to buster and shoot your charge shots. This strat does not save very much time. Also known as gameO Shiki Energy Bon-Bon Shika Goroshi. Demonstration. Note that this can be done in very many different ways, such as jumping over to the other side of Stag or using more charge shots than this. However, this is probably the easiest method. 'Magna Centipede' Using Silk Shot on Centipede makes him lose his tail. When he doesn't have his tail, he will teleport every time you hit him, which lags very much on console. Because of this, it is recommended to use charged buster shots/dash shots/Strike Chain to get him down to 8 or less health, and then finish him off with charged Silk Shot (for any%). If Centipede grabs you, every button that has an action bound to it can be used to wiggle out of his grasp. 'Crystal Snail' Low%/Easy Any% Method: Use only uncharged Magnet Mines, and juggle Snail's shell. Harder Any% Method: Use a charged Magnet Mine (watch the video linked below to see how to do it). If Snail enters his shell at the end, place a mine roughly in the middle of the room, and shoot another one upwards as he collides with the first one. Otherwise, push away his shell and shoot him with your mines. Alternate Any% Method: The two previous methods are slightly luck based, because you need Snail to not enter his shell at the beginning of the fight (and, for the charged mine method, you lose some time if he enters his shell at the end - although this may have to do with the timing of your hits rather than just luck). To avoid this, you can perform a Neon Switch before entering the room and defeat Snail using buster and charged Magnet Mine. Press the shoot button during the pause when Snail's health bar has filled up to shoot an uncharged shot, then shoot the charged shot, a dash shot and do the charged mine method. This method is slightly slower than doing the previous one and getting perfect luck. Demonstration of all 3 methods Shoryuken: There are two general methods for the Snail Shoryuken. The fastest method is to just jump right in front of him and do the Shoryuken, but this is fairly risky because the positioning is very precise and if he goes into his shell, you can't get him. A safer method is to shoot him with a Magnet Mine, performing a Shoryuken during his "going out of shell" animation, and then doing another Shoryuken. This wastes roughly 2 seconds if you do it well, and is a lot less risky. When you enter the capsule, hold your Weapon Switch-Left button to get a free switch, which makes switching to Magnet Mine without pausing easier. Demonstration of both methods 'Serges' Begin the fight with either a charged Magnet Mine or charged Silk Shot (Magnet Mine is harder, but faster - especially on console where Silk Shot lags very much), and then destroy the remaining cannons with uncharged Silk Shot. Afterwards, defeat Serges using charged Sonic Slicer; either from the bottom of his machine, or from his moving platforms. If you stand on the moving platforms, you can do "double hits" with each charged Sonic Slicer (getting you 2 hits on Serges per charge instead of one, as the name implies). The easiest way to do this is to stand in a certain position (see picture) and then jump and release your charge at the right time. This is fairly difficult to do consistently, and if you miss a double hit (either just getting one hit, or missing completely) you lose quite a bit of time over just standing at the bottom and releasing them. Note that since each charged Sonic Slicer deals 5 damage, and Serges has 32 health, you will need 6 charged Sonic Slicer hits + 2 additional damage, preferrably either from an uncharged Sonic Slicer (somewhat difficult to hit with, but you don't need to switch weapon) or an uncharged Speed Burner (easy to hit with). Demonstration of destroying the cannons 'Zero' Any%: As you enter the room where you fight Zero, do a Shoryuken to set up your position. If you need to, shoot Zero with uncharged buster shots to make him stop and cover his face - however, if you do this, make sure that you wait long enough with doing your Shoryuken or it will not do any damage because he is covering his face. If you miss the setup, there are a few methods for getting into position: you can jump up to the left wall to make him come towards you (slow, but easy; not very good in general), shoot and jump towards him (lame, but easy to get consistently and is the fastest if you do the Shoryuken as soon as you land), do a Shoryuken to set up your position (really cool, and also easy to get consistently as long as you are good at your Shoryuken inputs), or just walk and jump towards him (also really cool, but pretty hard to time correctly and doesn't save any time over shooting and jumping). Demonstration of backup strats 'Sigma Virus' It is possible to kill the Sigma Virus in a single Shoryuken. There are a few methods for doing this: *Hug the left wall and do a Shoryuken at the correct time. Frame perfect. This is the frame. *Do a halfcircle Shoryuken to the left from the starting position. 3 frames work. Note that there is one frame inbetween each correct frame. *Dash to the right and do a Shoryuken that follows Sigma's diagonal movement. Large frame window, but risky because you can get hit. Demonstration